


From the drops of flowing blood

by felinedetached



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Recreational Drug Use, Torture, Underage Drug Use, Which will eventually turn into just straight up, all of the drug uses, and, as well as, like this is gonna be fucked up, there we go just to cover all my bases, this is all for the game from andrew's pov with bonus gods and shit, uhh gonna add
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 18:32:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16749424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinedetached/pseuds/felinedetached
Summary: It doesn’t take long for that ancient rage to bubble up again; full-force and frothing, a storm-tossed sea bashing against a rocky, cliff-heavy coastline. It rises, heavy and screeching, when he looks at his foster family. When he looks at social services; when he’s sent to his next one.No!It screeches, a physical, overwhelming force with a voice of its own.This is not right! It isunjust.It is wrong!Andrew has blood on his teeth and metal on his tongue, and this rage roars even as he laughs, quiet and hysterical. “I know,” he says—whispers, really—and laughs again, a hoarse, dark, thing. “I know.”Andrew Minyard is many things: protector, guardian, murderer. In some lives, he's human. In some lives, he's not.In this life, he is the chosen of those who carry out the justice that nobody else will.





	1. heartless in a few ways

**Author's Note:**

> > _"Gaea (Earth), distressed by the loss of her children into Tartaros, persuaded the Titanes to attack their father, and she gave Kronos a sickle made of adamant. So all of them except Oceanus set upon Ouranos, and Kronos cut off his genitals, tossing them into the sea. From the drops of the flowing blood, the Erinyes were born, named Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > _Maybe I've been slipping back, heading south, carsick on a Tuesday_   
>  _Missing cash, blacking out, heartless in a few ways_   
>  _Shit for luck, elbows shredded, I held things steady like too late_   
>  _Please calm the fuck down, I'll do whatever you say_   
>  _I get it, I get it, I'm living too hard and it's time that I stop it_   
>  _But rising on up and then tumbling down well it's part of the process_   
>  _Bar tabs on a hot night in a cold basement_   
>  _You say I'm crazy but I feel amazing_   
> 
> 
> — [Can't Sleep, K.Flay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfwFGQM4D1E)

There has always been an odd kind of rage curling in Andrew’s chest. It is deep and dark and _old,_ and he does not know what it wants, or what it will do if he lets it out. So, he doesn’t. He keeps it locked up; lets himself get _mad,_ but not like _that;_ not with ancient hate-fire curling through his veins, bright and vicious and mean. He lets himself rage, throws himself into emotions with an unparalleled eagerness—so long as it is not the simmering anger lying deep inside his heart, he will feel it.

(He wants to feel it.)

(And then he doesn’t.)

* * *

Andrew’s ‘home’ life gets worse. He’d expected it, of course—he’s a troublemaker; a troubled kid, passed through families that don’t want to deal with him and families that do, but for reasons Andrew doesn’t like to think about. It doesn’t take long for that ancient rage to bubble up again; full-force and frothing, a storm-tossed sea bashing against a rocky, cliff-heavy coastline. It rises, heavy and screeching, when he looks at his foster family. When he looks at social services; when he’s sent to his next one.

 _No!_ It screeches, a physical, overwhelming force with a voice of its own. _This is not right! It is_ _unjust._ _It is wrong!_

Andrew has blood on his teeth and metal on his tongue, and this rage roars even as he laughs, quiet and hysterical. “I know,” he says—whispers, really—and laughs again, a hoarse, dark, thing. “I know.”

He traces his tongue over his teeth; feels the copper-slick taste of blood on his tongue and he lets the ancient bone-deep rage rise with a roar—a wave that sucks him under as his head fills with static and his mouth with needles.

“ _Good,_ ” His mouth says, but it is not him and it smiles a smile of silver and copper and gold. It is sharp and it is violent and it is vicious; it stalks through the house with a supernatural elegance and when it encounters Andrew’s foster father, it rips off his head.

 _You will not be found,_ It whispers, _chosen of us._

Andrew’s smile is slow and perhaps a little insane, but he can live with that. “Thank you,” he says, because perhaps this is a little sickening but it’s not that bad, really—he hurt less in his death than he’d hurt Andrew, after all—and so he leaves; death imprinted forever on his eyelids and a comforting sense of safety lying over his shoulders.

(He is no longer alone when he is with those who wish him harm. He has three voices in his head—Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone; the furies, erinyes, beings of vengeance and justice—and they colour his smile with sharp teeth and glinting metal. _Ours,_ they say, _our chosen._

Andrew’s more than fine with that.)

* * *

And then he meets a family he likes. Cass is nice, kind; the kind of person who seems made of light and elegance. She’s everything Andrew’s wanted in a family.

Her son, however, is not. Drake’s a marine. He’s away more often than he’s not and Andrew can’t help but be relieved at that—he’s left a trail of bodies behind him; those who touched him and those who watched; those who hit him and those who tried worse than that—but Drake isn’t someone he can risk.

Cass loves Drake. She gushes about him when he’s gone, pours over letters and photos. She smiles as she talks about him, bright and happy and beautiful. When she’s like this, she’s nicer to Andrew, too—“ _Andrew Joseph Spear,”_ she says, and it feels like a promise. It feels like a curse.

Drake’s smiles, when he comes home, are just as vicious as Andrew’s own. He hides it well; rests an arm over Andrew’s shoulders, whispers things in his ear that make him want to hide, and when asked, smiles a smile far too pure to be real. “It’s just a little inside joke, isn’t it, little brother?” he’ll say, and Andrew will nod because if he doesn’t, he’ll lose Cass.

He can’t lose Cass.

 _Chosen,_ Tisiphone whispers in his head, voice cracking in a way he’s never heard before.

 _Chosen,_ Megara whispers, vicious and insistent and heavy, copper-violence on his tongue.

 _Chosen,_ Alecto says, and there’s rage there; the same ancient, bone-deep hate-fire that curls through his own veins winding through her voice.

They call to him and he wraps their voices around his brain; protects himself even as harsh hands grip at his hips and harsh teeth nip at his throat.

 _Chosen,_ they say together, and Andrew pretends it doesn’t sound like _kill him._

(He won’t. Cass would hate him for it.)

(He _can’t._ Cass would hate him—)

(Maybe he would, if she wouldn’t.)

* * *

The knowledge of Cass’s knowledge hangs in the back of his head, more crushing, even, than Drake’s weight across his back. Andrew pretends he doesn’t know. Pretends Cass is perfect; everything he wants and needs and hopes for wrapped up in a package that says, “Andrew Joseph Spear,” and makes it sound like ‘home’. Makes it sound like ‘family’.

Andrew has lived through too much to think that a family that is not connected by blood can work, but he has not lived through enough to make him stop hoping that it will.

He hopes even as the furies hiss in his head; hopes even as his wrists ache and pull and ground him; hopes even as Drake’s breath fans hot and disgusting over the back of his neck.

Hope is a dangerous, disquieting thing and Andrew does not like it. He doesn’t like it at all.

* * *

The letter, when it comes, comes on a day that Drake is not home. Small mercies, Andrew supposes, as he reads through pages of neat, cramped writing oh-so-similar to his own. He notes, absently, that they write their a’s the same.

Aaron—because that is his twin brother’s name; Aaron Minyard—weaves a story of a baseball game, an officer calling him by a name that is not his own, and the almost-frantic discovery that he is not the only one out there with his genes. It weaves a story of disdain and interest and want and Andrew hates that he’s intrigued. He hates that he wonders what his mother is like (although he does not care for her; she gave him up, after all) and he hates that he wonders if Aaron is as he sounds in this letter. He hates that Aaron wants to come to see him, because he knows it will not end well.

Andrew would have been interested in this a few years ago. He would have read this letter and replied with something equally as long—truth for a truth, letter for a letter.

But Andrew is not the same person that he was a few years ago. Now furies hiss warnings in his ears, Cass gushes about how _amazing_ it is that Andrew has a _family,_ and he writes back two words: _fuck off._

It is a silly hope, but a hope nonetheless—he hopes, desperately, that Drake will never find out.

Of course, it does not work that way.

* * *

Andrew has never been caught for a crime. He is chosen of the furies; chosen of those who carry out vengeance and justice for the god of death himself, so of course he hasn’t. He’s a ‘troubled kid’, but he’s not a violent one; he’s not someone to steal or hit or kill.

(Or so they think.)

But then Cass starts _talking,_ and a man called Luther arrives—Andrew’s uncle, apparently—and he offers to help with the adoption.

“Cass is good for you,” he says, and then, because he is God-fearing to a fault and thinks that family is more important than he really does believe, adds, “although I wish you would meet with Aaron. He really would like to meet his twin.”

None of this matters in the end, though, because as Luther says this, Drake’s face lights up. Andrew knows what will come next.

(It will be Drake’s voice, hoarse and excited as he slams deep; as pain rips up Andrew’s spine and he muffles any sounds he makes in his pillow. Drake loves his sounds. Andrew will not give them to him. “Two of you, AJ!” he’ll say. “You’re a twin! Oh, I’d love to have both of you in bed with me. Imagine how pretty you would be.”)

He tells Luther. He confesses that he doesn’t want to stay with the Spears (a lie), says he is scared of Drake (truth) and tells him what Drake does (truth).

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Luther says. “Drake is a good man. After all these years, are you sure you’re just not sure what brotherly affection looks like?”

Andrew’s blood burns cold.

Megaera snarls in his head, startling—the furies have been surprisingly quiet during his time with the Spears—and loud. Alecto howls, furious; ancient, hate-bright anger tugging through his veins with her voice.

Tisiphone is quieter. But she talks, and when she talks Andrew is almost— _almost_ —surprised. _Kill them,_ she says, cold and harsh and quiet. She is vengeance incarnate; punisher of murderers, and she whispers desperate instructions that go against her very being into his ears.

(It is Alecto, usually, who floods his veins with rage and sets him on his foster families. He knows he will face judgement and be found wanting; he knows he will be sent to spend a life in torture for his crimes. He knows that those who whisper encouragement and aid in voices no one else can hear will be the ones to enact that punishment.

He knows that, for all their faults, they will go easy on him. They are fond of him.

He knows that, for all their faults, they would never suggest something that goes directly against who they are.)

Alecto and Megaera have him enact their punishments on those still living; have him send those who will be sentenced to an eternity down early. He knows that Tisiphone does not mind this.

But she has never encouraged it, either.

And yet…

 _Kill them,_ she whispers, _tear them limb from limb and protect what is yours. Protect what is_ _blood._

Andrew doesn’t, for once. It is Drake, and Cass loves Drake with everything in her. Andrew loves _Cass_ —or, at least, he thinks he does—and so he will not kill her son.

Instead, he smiles a smile silver-gold-copper-bright and says in a mouth that is his and a voice that isn’t quite his own; “Let me be found.”

* * *

Andrew steals the keys to the neighbour’s car—a beautiful black 1963 Cadillac, with seats of burnished-red leather—and with three sets of rage-bright laughs in his head (because the furies like car accidents, apparently; go figure), he wraps it around a  nearby tree. They clap him in handcuffs as he laughs hysterically, and the last thing he sees before the patrol car pulls away is Cass’s disappointed frown.

Cass’s disappointment doesn’t matter, in the end. All that matters is that he got Aaron away from Drake.

(Andrew just gave up his life—he gave up his home and his family; he gave up _Cass_ —for a brother he has never met. He hopes this brother of his appreciates it. Andrew doubts that he will.)

* * *

Juvie isn’t all bad. There’s a sport that Andrew is good at but doesn’t particularly care about. There’s a roommate that doesn’t matter so long as he does not come anywhere near Andrew’s side of the room. There is space and there is time, because people do not tend to go near the person with oddly sharp metallic-looking teeth and a reputation for hiding, obtaining and _using_ knives.

It’s okay. It’s not anything special, but Andrew can work with what he’s got.

He goes to school and he plays the sport—Exy, as a goalkeeper; the coach there doesn’t trust him not to pull a knife on someone on the field, apparently, and Andrew isn’t even going to argue that that’s not a good call—and it’s not anywhere near important enough to be hated or loved, so it’s fine. Andrew doesn’t pretend to care and no one asks him to.

He listens to the furies; takes their advice and their comfort. He learns about himself and he learns about others—he learns Megaera is particularly good at tying knots and is entirely willing to teach him; he learns that he almost likes giving pleasure, but he does _not_ like receiving it—and he creates his own status quo, here in juvie. Everyone knows what to expect from him. He knows what to expect from everyone.

Until he gets visitors.

It’s an odd thought, Andrew Doe having visitors—even Cass never visits him here—so when his name is called on Visiting Day, he almost ignores it.

Until the name of his visitors are read out.

“Andrew Doe,” the man says, “Aaron Minyard and Luther Hemmick are here for you.”

Andrew remembers Luther. His memories of him are not fond. He remembers Aaron, too—of course he does—but there is not much emotion there to remember. What he remembers is a letter and a promise hissed into his ear by a man too morally fucked for the furies to want anything but his head on a platter.

What he remembers is that this is all for Aaron, in the end. Andrew knows better than to think he’ll appreciate it.

The visit is, of course, when everything changes. That’s always how things go—in novels, in movies, and in real fucking life too, apparently. Andrew looks through the glass to see a boy identical to him, but for the way he shies from Luther—their uncle, apparently—and the bruises on his arms and on his face. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that someone is hitting him; that someone is hitting his _brother,_ and the furies screech angrily in his head.

 _Crimes of anger!_ Alecto says, aggressive, hating. _Crimes of hate!_

She is talking about Aaron’s bruises when she says _anger,_ and Andrew can see that. But she is talking about Luther when she says _hate._ Andrew tilts his chair back, makes a comment on the bruises and doesn’t say much more, and his brother and uncle leave with nothing much to show for their trip. Andrew, though—he smiles with teeth made more of Copper than anything and lets himself be led back to his cell.

Two months later, he is let out early for ‘good behaviour’.

Luther is the first person he calls.

* * *

Aaron, Andrew learns, lives with his mother—not _their_ mother; she lost that right when she gave him up—and is well and truly deep in her lifestyle. Tilda, the utter cow, feeds him her own ‘prescribed’ pills and likes to hit for even the smallest of offences. Andrew made it clear from the moment he arrived that he would not submit; not like Aaron.

See, Andrew actually has a spine.

It is made of copper and silver and gold.

He smiles with teeth that glint in the light and watches as Tilda, with horror-filled eyes, backs off. Her fear is enough for him. Aaron’s fear is enough for her.

They live in a cycle until Andrew makes a promise.

It goes like this: Andrew has never had anyone to promise things to before. He has been through many ‘homes’, lived with many foster families, but he has never had anyone to make a proper promise to. His one to Aaron goes like this:

Aaron comes upstairs one night, and his face is slowly bruising again. He’s brilliantly high; can probably barely feel the pain. Andrew watches him, lying on his bed, comforted by the knowledge that even with his own eyes closed, the furies keep watch for him.

 _A crime of anger,_ Alecto says, grim, and Andrew tilts his head to watch Aaron as he slowly, slowly comes down from the high. In a few minutes—perhaps an hour, tops—he’ll be shaking, slightly. Desperate for another pill, another hit, another fix.

Andrew knows what they’re taking, but he doesn’t care enough to remember it right this moment. Instead, he sits up.

“Why do you let her hit you?” he asks. Aaron, of course, doesn’t respond. Andrew wouldn’t respond either. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand, and tries again. “Do you want her to stop?”

This one Aaron answers.

“Of course I do!” He says, indignant, as if Andrew had asked something stupid, or offensive. “Do you think I _like_ it?”

Andrew hums, noncommittal, and says, “I wouldn’t put it past you.” His voice is light and his words are mean and Aaron snarls something incoherent. He’s mad. Andrew can work with this. “Let's make a deal,” he says.

Aaron stops muttering and cursing and looks up at Andrew. He’s suspicious—good, Andrew can work with that—but not closed off. “What kind of deal?”

“I’ll protect you,” Andrew tells him. “No one will hurt you ever again.” Here, he pauses. Aaron looks like he’s going to laugh, or refuse, so he continues. “Especially women. In return, you give me your social life. No one that I don’t approve of.” The furies mutter in the back of his head, admiring and accepting of this deal, but Aaron scoffs.

“Sure, whatever,” he says, and Andrew knows that Aaron doesn’t believe him.

That’s okay, though. The deal is set. The terms made, conditions accepted. It doesn’t matter if Aaron doesn’t believe him.

Andrew keeps his promises.

* * *

It is, of course, Alecto who has the most input in this. Andrew read up on the furies the moment he figured out where the ancient, bone-deep hate-fire rage building in his veins came from. Alecto deals with hate. With anger. She punishes crimes with those emotions as their driving force.

Every one of Tilda’s hits comes from the slightly-different bone-deep anger that she thinks she hides deep within herself. Andrew would relate, but he’s been hit too many times to do so to someone like her properly. Instead, he plans, and it is Alecto who ensures that he is never caught.

Together, late at night; with Tilda high and asleep and Aaron much the same way, they sneak down creaky stairs and out the front door. Andrew doesn’t know what he’s doing when he messes with the breaks, but he’s entirely sure he’s fucked them up. Alecto’s braying laughter in his head only confirms it.

At school, he works on part two. It doesn’t take much to convince Aaron to switch places with him and it doesn’t take much work to switch places when the time comes.

 _Sometimes,_ Andrew muses as Tilda’s hand lands heavy across his face, _being an identical twin has its perks._

He goes to Luther with what’s happened. Andrew knows Luther, though, and he knows that Luther will not care. He knows that Luther will probably say that this is all a misunderstanding—that what Tilda does to Aaron is motherly love; Aaron is just misinterpreting things.

That is, of course, exactly what happens.

On their way home, Andrew smiles a copper-bright smile and says, “I’m not Aaron, by the way.”

Tilda lurches, hits the accelerator by accident and discovers, as the car swerves into a tree to avoid the car in front, that the breaks don’t work either.

The fact that it’s a tree again makes Andrew laugh, hysterical and high and maniac, and Tilda’s screams echo in his ears as the world turns into screeching metal and shattering glass.

It hurts—of course it does; car accidents are messy things, and Andrew had always accepted that he might die in this car too—but he’s alive, in the end. Tilda, however, is not.

She was not wearing a seatbelt.

Andrew looks at his twin brother’s mother’s corpse, bent over the steering wheel and hanging through the windshield, and he laughs.

The paramedics say it’s shock. Andrew thinks it’s victory.

* * *

He’s in hospital for Tilda’s funeral, but he meets Nicky Hemmick anyway. His cousin is overwhelmingly cheerful and instantly irritating when he visits, and Andrew almost immediately decides against involving Nicky in any discussion about his sexuality. He’d never planned on it, but their meeting only cements hiding that away.

He had thought, once, that family bound by blood would be easier. Andrew has known this for a while, but he’d never put the words to it before now: no family is easy.

That, of course, doesn’t make dealing with it any better.

“Luther wants to take custody of you and Aaron,” Nicky tells him at one point, his voice surprisingly sober. It’s a direct contrast to his typically exuberant personality; a direct contrast to every word they’d exchanged before this point. Or, at least: every word Nicky had said. Andrew doesn’t talk much.

“Don’t let him,” Andrew says; it’s one of the first things he’s ever said to Nicky and that’s the end of that discussion. Alecto whispers her approval in the back of his head—not that he needs it—and it’s settled. They will not go to Luther.

Andrew doesn’t trust anyone with Luther. From Nicky’s reaction—stealing the twins from right out under his poor, Christian father’s nose—Nicky doesn’t trust anyone with Luther either. That’s enough for Andrew; the fact that neither of them trust a seemingly good, God-fearing man, even if it is for different reasons.

 _Luther’s god does not exist,_ Tisiphone whispers, a rare moment of callous vengeance, kept for Andrew and for Andrew alone. It does not matter that Luther doesn’t know he is praying to a false god. That Andrew has that knowledge and Luther doesn’t is viciously entertaining in its own right.

* * *

Andrew takes Tilda’s life insurance and, without Aaron’s knowledge—because Aaron would stop him if he knew what was planned—he buys a car. Specifically, he buys a Lexus GS; something that costs six figures, once he’s added everything he wants to it. He blows Tilda’s life insurance on a car, when she’d died in a car crash.

It’s exactly the kind of vicious irony he enjoys and the furies laugh at; callous, hysterical laughter that could really only be born from the kind of people who torture people for a living.

It’s a good thing they do.

* * *

Working isn’t any different from what Andrew had expected. He’s a waiter; too young and being paid under the table, but a waiter nonetheless. Aaron washes dishes, Nicky mixes drinks. Andrew doesn’t care enough to hate his job, even though it cuts into the time he’s able to sleep. On top of school and Exy—which, absurdly, both Aaron and Nicky play too—Andrew often finds himself too busy to think.

It’s good, almost. It works, at least. The furies whisper to him, show him intentions and lies and the raw, unfettered truth of people. Andrew ensures that Aaron is not friends with anyone the furies have not vetted.

(He spent a week watching over Aaron, locked in a bathroom and going through withdrawal. Andrew will not let that go to waste over something as petty and insignificant as _friendship_.)

What they have works, at least. A home, in Columbia. Jobs, school, a hobby. Family, not that it is much of one.

Then two things happen: first, the Ravens come knocking. It’s a year too early for scouts, but then Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day aren’t really ‘scouts’. They’re here for recruiting purposes, though—that rings loud and clear in every word they say. They are interested in Andrew and in Andrew alone, and they are the kind of people unused to hearing the word ‘no’.

Andrew takes _great_ pleasure in teaching them what it sounds like.

“You could be court!” Kevin calls after him, something desperate in his voice. Kevin has something to live for. He has a game and a family—he has a brother who he gets along with; a talent he enjoys and the motivation to use it—and Andrew has and is nothing.

“No,” he says, final, watches as his coach starts; watches as his team looks up, shocked— _“Andrew Minyard just turned down_ _Kevin Day-_ _”_ —and knows that this will become something more than it should be.

(Andrew doesn’t truly realise what’s happened until years after it does.)

The second thing that happens goes like this: Nicky steps outside to talk to Erik. It’s something common; something that he does on his shift breaks, because the time difference means that in those moments, they can actually talk. Andrew is serving, so he notices when Nicky steps out. He also notices when four men—and they are men; hulking, muscular goon-type men—step out after him.

Roland notices too; his eyes catch on Andrews and even as Andrew drops the tray he’s holding and shoves his way through the crowd, Roland is out from behind the bar and heading for the bouncers over by the front door.

No matter how fast those bouncers move, though, they will not be faster than Andrew. He hears “faggot”, watches as his vision turns red and Alecto takes over, screeching bloody murder in his brain. It is a crime of hatred, and his teeth and his eyes both burn copper and brilliant as he ensures that these men will never lay a hand on anyone ever again—least of all Nicky.

He doesn’t ‘come to’, as it were, until Roland and one of the bouncers—Andrew thinks his name is Derek—grab him, pulling him away from… well, whoever they were. Andrew doesn’t particularly care about them. Instead, he looks for Nicky. He seems fine, offering a small, hesitant smile even as blood drips down his face. Nicky’s nose is swollen and bleeding, his lip split. Andrew isn’t close enough to see if there’s much other damage, but that alone is enough to respark his rage.

 _Kill them,_ Alecto hisses, _kill them and send them to me. Send them to the deep._

Andrew laughs, hysteric; how he _wishes_ he could do that. But no—this time, there are too many witnesses. This time, he will be caught. With every other death before this, he’s had one rule: kill all witnesses.

With this? He’s too attached. There are too many. All that matters, in the end, is that he cannot kill them. Alecto’s screech echoes in his ears, and Andrew keeps laughing.

This is the end, for him.

* * *

He got off light, when he thinks about it. Mandatory therapy. Mandatory antipsychotics. It’s a government-approved addiction, and Andrew’s not sure what exact drugs he’s on, but he kn0ws they’re not right. They send his brain sky-high and Andrew’s almost 100% sure antipsychotics aren’t supposed to do that.

Whatever. They don’t care because it works—he’s too high to look violent, usually, even if he’s not too high to _be_ violent. What no one else knows can’t hurt him, anyway, and the furies ensure that, at least.

His furies and odd loyalties; that’s all he has left. These things are, in equal measure, what ensures he will never be caught again.

It doesn’t matter now, though: now he has a record. Now, no college-level Exy team in the world would risk everything to sign him. Andrew’s okay with that—he’s never really liked Exy, anyway; never really cared enough to hate it either—but, for some reasons, his family are _not_ okay with it.

“You could have gone pro,” Nicky says, once; somehow both disbelieving and self-hating at once. “You could have gone pro—Kevin Day said you could have—and you threw it away! For me! Why?”

Andrew doesn’t answer. He wouldn’t care enough to answer properly anyway, but the drugs have wrecked his attention span even more. Before, he found nothing interesting. His life was boredom interspersed with the brilliant flashes of life that came with a fight or a long drop.

(In another life, perhaps, he would have been a thrill-seeker. A man living a life of extreme sports and violent fights until, finally, his lifestyle caught up with him and he died ‘too young’.)

Now, he’s constantly happy. There’s nothing left to make him sad or mad and a manic smile spreads across his face, hiding the fact that this is somehow more irritating and more boring than the boredom of before. The novelty of these ‘happy pills’ wears off alarmingly fast.

(Megaera can always be trusted to alert him to Aaron’s presence, now. With Andrew required to take the drugs and Aaron not far enough removed from his past to eliminate possibility of a relapse, Aaron’s jealousy around him is tangible. It would likely be unbearable, but Andrew is too high to care.)

* * *

Andrew keeps playing Exy, both because he was on the team before anyway and high school teams don’t care enough about their image in relation to a relatively new and unknown sport to kick him off. Aaron is on the team, too, which is just one more reason for Andrew to stay—he made a deal and he still plans to uphold it—even if he spends most of his time standing in goal and laughing quietly as balls whistle past his head.

The year passes quickly—exy and work taking up their spare time, Andrew’s therapy and school taking up everything left—until it is finally their second to last game. It could, actually, be their last game; after all, if they lose this they’re not going on to finals. Andrew doesn’t care either way.

All that matters is that it is the end of the year. Twelve months, twelve therapists, many, many games and practices. Too many to count. (Too many to bother counting.)

Andrew hasn’t had any more scouts come for him. No more scouts, no more offers, no more Exy.

Until there is.

It’s a man, of course—most of the scouts have been men—and he doesn’t look like a scout. Oh, no, with tribal flame tattoos winding up bare arms and a perpetual scowl; with a smiling, short-haired girl standing beside him, he doesn’t look at all like a scout.

But he talks to their coach and he is gesturing at Andrew, who, as is his way, completely ignores the ball that whips past his head and lights the goal up red in favour of watching these two newcomers who seem to be so adamant about seeing him.

(Ha; head, red. A head, red; a redhead—but not a typical one, oh no, that wouldn’t do. A head red with blood—perhaps it is Drake’s, bashed in and unrecognisable—would be nice.)

He catches the next goal—it falls neatly into his net, how upsetting—and tosses it back down the court, absent but sure. His attention (or, what is left of it) is focused entirely on these two newcomers and their interest in him. That hadn’t worked out so well last time.

 _These ones,_ Alecto says, _we feel nothing from._

 _But,_ Megaera adds, _we will tear them limb from limb for you if it must be._

It’s a sweet sentiment. Too bad Andrew doesn’t care.

* * *

The game ends—they’ve won; on to finals, it would seem—and coach whatever-his-name-is wanders over after a congratulatory message to the team. “Andrew,” he says, because with both him and Aaron on the team, no one calls either of them ‘Minyard’, “there’s someone here to see you.”

“Oh, coach,” Andrew says, smiles, “remember last time someone was here to see me? What makes you think this time will go any differently?”

“Nothing,” Coach says, and he’s so _grim._ It’s almost upsetting.

“Lighten up!” Andrew says. “I can’t promise I won’t kill them, but I will at least clean up the locker rooms afterwards.”

Coach just watches him leave, a horrified sort of acceptance lying in his eyes. Oops. Andrew might have broken him, there. Oh, well; in a week or so, Andrew won’t have to deal with a broken coach and Coach won’t have to deal with Andrew at all, so, as they say: all’s well that ends well.

* * *

The two newcomers are, as Andrew had expected, waiting for him in the same room that Kevin and Riko had used. It doesn’t bring up bad memories, as such, but it does make him wonder what it would have felt like to break Riko Moriyama’s nose. Andrew imagines it would feel very satisfying.

“So!” He chirps, bright; excessively cheerful and entirely unable to keep his mouth shut. Said mouth stretches into a wide, toothy grin—one that Andrew knows for a fact scares people more than comforts them. It’s not his fault he does that, though: the drugs make him always happy! Of course he’s going to be unnerving. “What did I do to deserve such a visit? Was it the vandalism? The breaking and entering? The assault?”

The girl, at least, looks perturbed by this. The man, however—he steps forwards. “No,” he says and it’s only half a step that he moves, but Andrew shifts to compensate. The man steps back. Andrew stares at him. “I’m Coach David Wymack of the Palmetto State Foxes, and this is our captain, Dan Wilds. We’ve come to recruit you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://felinedetached.tumblr.com/)


	2. take a deep breath, it’s always sunny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > _We can go to my house if you wanna_   
>  _Hang out in my bedroom, lose your honor_   
>  _Even if they find us, we're apathetic_   
>  _And they can't take that away_
>> 
>> _The voices in my right brain are kinda funny_   
>  _They tell me "take a deep breath, it's always sunny"_   
>  _But where I leave the lights on_   
>  _It's so obvious that my life's pretty plain_
>> 
>> _I take my pills and I'm happy all the time_   
>  _I'm happy all the time_   
>  _I'm happy all the time_
> 
> — [Happy Pills, Weathers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWiJk11NGUE)

They win finals. Andrew isn’t all that bothered, but Nicky screams and jumps around, excessively happy. Even Aaron cracks a smile—a tired one, but it’s there. Nicky insists they go to Eden’s Twilight, despite the fact that they’re not working today, and that they stop off at Sweeties on the way.

Andrew doesn’t care. He’s tired; drained, bored. He cares too little about anything here to be invested either way, so when Aaron seconds Nicky’s request, he gives in quickly. Eden’s Twilight isn’t bad—it’s not like he hates the club; it is, in fact, more interesting than school is—but Andrew doesn’t  _ want _ to go anywhere, as such. He doesn’t want to go places in much the same way that he doesn’t want anything; a detached sort of apathy that rings in his brain and doesn’t do much but drive him mad with boredom.

The furies don’t have any objections, though; so Andrew gets in the car—front seat, of course, it’s his car after all—and drives them to the bar. When he goes to pick up their drinks, Roland smirks; blatantly eyes him and leans forward over the counter. “What can I get you?” He asks, flirting flagrantly. The furies chitter, but they don’t object to this, either, so Andrew presumes there’s no ill intent from Roland or from anyone around him.

“Surprise me,” he says, gives Roland a brazen once-over and leans calmly against the bar. Not long after, Roland hands him a tray of drinks and nods towards the back room.

“I’ve got a break in fifteen minutes,” Roland says. It’s casual, but Andrew nods, throws a smirk, and heads back to the table with their drinks.

Fifteen minutes later, he slips away; abandons Nicky and Aaron to their drunkenness and dancing and drops to his knees in the break room, watching Roland fall apart under his hands and lips and tongue.

* * *

On the first day of their first Exy season with the Foxes, Nicky dresses in the most outrageous outfit Andrew’s ever seen. He doesn’t care about the outfit, as such—Nicky can do whatever he wants; Andrew doesn’t control him, after all—but he does care about Aaron’s disgusted groan at the sight of it. He ignores it, though, and slips into the driver’s seat of the GS. “Let's go,” he says, bored, drumming his fingers along the steering wheel.

Nicky climbs into the passenger seat next to him and Aaron scrambles into the back, grumbling all the while. Andrew ignores him, and puts his foot down flat on the gas pedal. The Foxhole Court awaits.

* * *

The foxes are, of course, suspicious. Walking into the room feels like walking into a wall of confusion and hostility; intentions both pure and not. Andrew keeps close-ish to the door, stepping up beside the girl with rainbow hair who’d offered to shake Nicky’s hand.

_ Renee Walker, _ Tisiphone says, without prompting.  _ She is one I would choose not to punish. _

Now, isn’t that interesting. Andrew takes in her pure Christian girl appearance and discards it instantly—there’s something  _ far _ more interesting than that about Renee Walker, and Andrew wants to find out what it is.

As such, when she smiles at him, he nods back. It’s recognition; one monster to another.

Of the rest of the team, only some are remotely interesting—the captain, Dan Wilds, with a grin to match her name and a history written through how she holds herself; Allison Reynolds, disavowed heiress and uncomfortably perfect in the way people only are when they have too much to hide; Matt Boyd, watching his upperclassmen warily, obvious track marks writing a story up and down his arms—while the others are easily written off; homophobes, assholes; those who were abused and came out the other side worse than their parents ever were.

(Andrew refuses to be like them.)

* * *

Each of the Foxes has their issues. Andrew picks the most dangerous—those with issues that slip from personal into overwhelming; things that could harm those that Andrew promised to protect—and he brings them to Columbia. To Eden’s Twilight; where those that know Andrew and his own do not argue or question when he requests spiked drinks; where Roland is there, stress relief for the worst of times; where the atmosphere is sultry and the music embeds itself into Andrew’s bones.

He can be sober here, in this club; where no one thinks he deserved his sentence and everyone is all-too-willing to turn a blind eye.

It’s all but perfect.

(If there is one thing Andrew knows, it is this: nothing is perfect. Nothing is anywhere near perfect, because he is the chosen of the erinyes. He is the chosen of torturers and murderers and he has seen the worst of life and he came out kicking. Nothing is perfect because nothing and no one is  _ good. _ The furies can attest to that.)

Regardless; he takes Dan the first time. Dan is the captain, the team’s lynchpin; the reason that even with all the blatant infighting, the team does not fall apart. Andrew has someone in mind for his next visit.

He needs to make sure that Dan won’t fuck that up.

(He finds out, quickly, that she won’t be a problem. Tisiphone whispers Dan’s lack of ill-intentions in Andrew’s ear and Alecto watches quietly for any hint of rage at the drugs and the alcohol. It doesn’t appear. She takes some, actually—entirely by choice; a contrast to those already hidden in her drink—and doesn’t show the typical hints of disgust or fear as she watches them, or as it kicks in for her too. Dan is interesting, Andrew thinks, and she might be a problem after they deal with Matt.

But it will be a problem worth watching.

Andrew feels the corners of his mouth slide slowly, inexorably, into a grin. Maybe this year won’t be so boring after all.)

* * *

The next week, he sends Nicky and Aaron up to get Matt. They take too long, of course—as Megaera told him long ago: if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself—so Andrew wanders back down the hall in their general direction as well. Dan is, predictably, concerned; she went out with them earlier. She knows Matt’s addiction. She knows they do drugs.

She doesn’t stop him.

It’s an interesting choice, and it’s also one that makes Andrew’s only slightly manic smile stretch ever wider as he heads back down to the car. He’s got an entourage following him; furies whispering in his ears and telling him of rage buried deep and a jealousy awakened.

Matt’s going to fall off the rails sometime this year. Andrew’s just accelerating that.

(It’s for the best. It’s for Aaron; for his own hard work at helping his brother recover. Andrew won’t let a weak-willed ex-addict destroy that work.)

First, they call Matt’s mother. The man pays a distressingly small amount of attention to his phone, and Andrew pickpockets it easily. It’s even easier to unlock—his password is simple; something that doesn’t even reach the level of difficulty it would require for Andrew to not remember the pattern of his fingers when he unlocks it—and Andrew picks his way through the contacts until he finds the one just labelled ‘mom’.

He calls it. She picks up.

“Matt?” she says, and Andrew laughs, low.

“Try again. This is his teammate.” The woman pauses, obviously concerned, but she does ask what she wants to know, which is more than what Andrew can say for a lot of parents.

“What’s wrong with Matt?”

“Nothing, yet,” he says. “He’s going to fall off the rails, though. Like knows like, and your son is twitching.”

“Oh, Matt,” Matt’s mother says, distressed and quietly resigned. She’d known it was going to happen—that much is obvious—although you’d have had to be blind, deaf and stupid to not see how jumpy Matt is about the upperclassmen and their unrepentant drug use.

“I can do it now,” he says, “force him through rehab again and ensure that this time, he doesn’t give in.”

She doesn’t say anything, at first. Andrew hadn’t expected her too. He’s trying to get permission, but he’d do it anyway, if he had to—Aaron is his first and only priority, and if he has to ruin Matt and build him back up to do it; well, then, Andrew will do that.

With or without permission.

“Do it,” she says, eventually. “I’ll fly in tonight.”

Andrew feels a smile spread slow and sly and mean across his face. “See you in the morning, Mrs. Boyd.”

When he slips Matt’s phone back into his pocket, the man is none the wiser.

* * *

They start with dust. It’s almost pathetic, how easily Matt gives in. He takes the crackers, and it’s obviously not enough—only a hint of the high he’s used to; the high he wants.

Andrew doesn’t make him wait long before he nonchalantly slides speedballs onto the tray of drinks.

None of his touch them. They all know who the drugs are for.

Matt gives in predictably, unsettlingly easily. Again. Aaron, though—Aaron makes a quiet noise of disgust as their new ‘friend’ leaves the table, hands clutched tight around the small packets.

“Should we go after him?” Nicky asks, after a bit. Andrew hums, noncommittal.

“Wait a bit,” he says, hears the furies murmur their approval in his ears. “Then we take him to Abby’s.”

It’s unusual, of course—driving to Columbia and then driving straight back. Normally, they’d stop off at their house, but Andrew’s detoxed one person in that house already. He doesn’t want to have to do it again.

So: ten minutes later, they drag Matt out of the bathroom and pack him into the back seat. Andrew hops in with him, leaving Nicky to drive and Aaron in the front. It’s a sacrifice—another small one, easy to make in the face of his brother’s continued sobriety—that makes the furies chitter. Andrew knows they think he’s giving up too much.

He also knows that they’ll support him anyway. (They always do.)

_ Of course, _ Alecto hisses and something warm curls in his chest, wholly unlike the ancient rage-fire she usually summons. Andrew buries it and ignores it. 

They need to get Matt back to Abby’s. 

* * *

“What did you do!” Wymack roars, and that instinctive urge to murder rises deep in his chest. Alecto screeches and Andrew has a knife out of its sheath and between them in a heartbeat, even as he flinches away. Wymack freezes, instantly; takes half a step back and visibly reigns in his anger.

(Andrew realises, right here, in Abby’s living room with Matt groaning on the couch and Aaron half a step away from the wall, heading towards him, that Wymack hadn’t known. He’d chosen Andrew for this half-way house of a sports team because of his mother’s death and his repeated brushes with law enforcement. He’d likely known Andrew had been in the system—that’s public record, after all—but Andrew had just revealed it had been a little bit worse than the likely-assumed neglect.)

As such, Andrew is not (entirely) Andrew when his teeth shine silver and copper and gold and he says, “Step back or we will kill you.”

The air hangs heavy and ripe with violence, but Wymack steps back. Andrew doesn’t relax. He doesn’t think he  _ can, _ anymore—a cocktail of drugs swimming in his veins; a man too old and too similar to others for him to be anything but uncomfortable around; Alecto’s whispers of  _ anger _ in his ears. 

But Wymack stepped back.

Alecto drops her hold.

“Andrew,” Aaron says, confused and angry and scared—everything Andrew had tried, desperately, to keep him from being—but Andrew ignores it.

“Look after Matt, now,” he says, taps two fingers to his forehead in a mockery of a salute and walks out the door.

* * *

Renee corners him a few days later, at practice. She broke up the fight—Andrew cannot bring himself to be grateful, even when she saved him and his from injury because she did it protecting her own—although, Andrew thinks, that, at least, lets him understand her. “I think you should apologise,” she says, and Andrew stares at her; a blank slate and a vicious grin with no need for anything so simple as apologies. He is a forest fire—he is the burning rage of those far more powerful than him; the necessity for promises and revenge;  he who protects those who would otherwise be revenged—and forest fires do not apologise to those whom they burn.

Renee looks at him; hums something incomprehensible and adjusts her statement: “You had good intentions, but you hurt them. I’d like you to apologise.”

“Minyards don’t apologise,” Andrew replies, high as a kite—higher, still, than Icarus had been—and unable to do anything about it. He says  _ Minyards _ and he means  _ Furies, _ because Aaron has not been chosen by the Furies (or anyone, for that matter) but he cannot very well admit to them. Even if Renee rings something inside him—like calls to like, they often say—he cannot admit to being the chosen of mythological beings.

If he is right and she is like him, she will hate him for the ones who have chosen him. If he is wrong and she is not, she will call him insane. Andrew isn’t scared of either of those things, but he  _ is _ possessive, and he somehow feels that if he tells her, his furies will be less his.

(They do not agree. Andrew doesn’t care. His brain is hardly rational, after all.)

She seems to read the double meaning, however, as she tilts her head and watches him with eyes far too sharp to see anything but the truth. With her next words, she is testing him. Andrew sees it. He knows she knows he sees it. She does it anyway.

“God would not punish you for good intentions,” she says, “but many say they pave the road to hell.”

“Oh, Renee,” Andrew replies, because he may not have been able to tell Luther but he can tell Renee, here and now. “Your god doesn’t exist.”

She smiles. “Many people have told me that in the past, Andrew, but I think you’ll find that Hestia of the Hearth is very much real.”

Andrew’s furies light up with a chatter far more expressive and excitable than he’s ever seen them. It’s an interesting thought, that.

“And I think you’ll find,” he starts, feeling a smile spread far too slow and far too wide across his lips, “that the path to Hades need not be paved. I have found my way there already.”

Renee nods like he’s confirmed something intensely important, and offers Andrew a smile. “I think we can benefit from each other,” she says.

Andrew’s furies agree. Andrew doesn’t often disagree with them.

This isn’t one of those times.

(On Friday, Renee beats him into the ground quite soundly. Andrew pops right back up, though, and his furies remain blessedly quiet in his brain. Renee almost feels like salvation.)

* * *

Wymack calls Andrew into his office a few days after his first sparring session with Renee.

“Alright,” he says, “you’re obviously far more fucked up than your files let on, if you’ve found yourself a patron in a fury.”

Andrew is surprised—of course he is—but he doesn’t show it. Instead, he lets that slow, manic smile spread across his face and says, “Who said it was only one?”

Wymack, because he projects every emotion he has, lets his shock show across his face. He recovers quickly, to his credit, and is almost calm when he says, “Please stop fucking with my kids.”

Andrew freezes, flinches, feels Tisiphone rising in his head, wrapping around his heart. “We don’t like that word,” she says with his body.

“Okay,” Wymack says, holds his hands up in a clear motion of surrender. A clear movement, easily followed, projected and slow, to show that he will not hurt Andrew. Andrew hates that he appreciates it. “Stop fucking with my kids though, Minyard. I’m of Soteria. I can’t have this happen on my watch.”

Soteria. God of safety and salvation. Fitting, Andrew thinks, with how the Foxes are made up.

“Don’t worry, coach, this should be a one-time thing!” He says, cheer forced into his voice by no will of his own. Andrew hates that too. “So long as they don’t touch what’s mine, they’ll be fine.”

Wymack nods, accepting that. Or, perhaps, accepting that this is the best he’s going to get from someone with all three of Hades’ torturers as their patron.

“That’s all I ask,” Wymack says, but Andrew hears the unspoken  _ for now _ loud and clear.

* * *

They’re at a banquet, when it happens. It happens all at once, in fact. In the space of a few seconds, even.

And it starts like this: Tisiphone, screeching about Jealousy; a jealousy so intense she feels it from far away—feels it even though it’s not directed at Andrew. Nearly simultaneously, Alecto’s rage rises thick and hot and heavy in Andrew’s chest. All three of the furies agree, though: they must leave the banquet.  _ All  _ of the Foxes must.

Andrew doesn’t argue. Renee must see something in his face, because when he goes for her, she starts rounding up her lot without question.

Andrew leads the way.

It’s as a group that they bump into Wymack, whose shirt is covered in blood he assures them is not his. Andrew knows that they will all be wondering whose, especially as Wymack ushers them quickly aboard the bus. Abby is already present, conspicuously blocking everyone’s view of a seat. Cautiously, Andrew eyes them—Wymack, Abby, even the crumpled form on the seat mostly blocked from view—but he plants himself in a way that doesn’t let anyone get near the seat and in a way that he knows will tell Wymack he expects an explanation for what they’ve gotten themselves into.

He gets it.

“Kevin Day came to me with a broken hand,” he says. “A broken  _ left _ hand. We’re offering him a place with the Foxes.”

The bus is silent for all of ten seconds before it explodes into overwhelming noise. Andrew, ignoring the chatter, pieces together what he knows about Kevin Day with what Tisiphone and Alecto have been giving him all night. Jealousy, rage, violence. A superstar exy player with a broken hand. Whispers that Kevin Day is the better striker between him and Riko Moriyama.

He knows he’s got it right when all three furies erupt with rage at him thinking Riko’s name.

“Riko did it,” he says, only loud enough for Wymack to hear. It gets a sharp reaction—one that he pays no mind, as he makes his way towards where Renee’s sitting, just in front of his little family. “I get Kevin,” he says, and settles into his seat.

Renee nods in agreement. All that’s left is to talk with a crippled striker with some blatantly huge issues.

(Absently, almost, Andrew wonders why Kevin chose the Foxes, of all teams to go to for help. Sure, Wymack knew Kayleigh Day. Sure, he’s known for taking charity cases. But Kevin has never shown anything but disdain for the Foxes and Andrew wonders, almost obsessively, if it’s worth taking Kevin when it could hurt those he’s already promised to protect.

Promised to keep.

Megaera, speaking up for the first time tonight, assures him that it is.)

* * *

Kevin only confirms what Andrew knew already, when he wakes up. He cries, when he talks about Riko and the Moriyamas; cries as he spins a tale of mafia and murder and abuse.

“Why should I help you?” Andrew asks, even as he knows he will. His furies want him to. Wymack wants him to.

Kevin wants him to.

“Because I’ll give you a reason to live,” Kevin says. It’s so absurdly entitled, hearing that, that Andrew laughs, at first. He laughs and laughs and laughs, bright and manic but just as lifeless as Kevin just accused him of being.

“Okay,” he says, far too cheerfully, “we have a deal!”

And that, as they say, is that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have so many ideas, which i'm going to put here because tumblr is dying in t-6 days and that's almost terrifying.
> 
> the patrons:  
> andrew — the furies, obviously  
> aaron — asclepius (medicine)  
> nicky — philotes (friendship, affection, intimacy, sex)  
> kevin — kratos (strength)  
> neil — hybris (insolence, absurd behaviour) and alke (battle strength)  
> renee — hestia (hearth, home)  
> matt — philophrosyne (welcome, friendliness, kindness)  
> dan — alala (the war cry)  
> allison — erato (desired, lovely; muse of love poetry)  
> seth — bia (force, anger, raw energy)  
> wymack — soteria (safety, salvation)  
> katelyn — artemis (womanhood, childbirth, the moon)
> 
> some other, not entirely figured out ones yet—feel free to weigh in in the comments:  
> nathan — deimos (fear, dread, panic)  
> mary — apate (deciet; briefly considered for neil) or eulabeia (caution, discretion)  
> riko — moros (impending doom) or poena (pain, punishment, penalty)  
> jean — peitharchia (obedience) or pepromene (fate, destiny)  
> jeremy — eupheme (praise, acclaims, shouts of triumph) or pistis (good faith, trust, reliability)
> 
> anyway it was my birthday yesterday, so i decided to give you all a late birthday present! enjoy <3
> 
> find me on [a dying website](https://felinedetached.tumblr.com/), or, like, on [twitter](https://twitter.com/felineDetached)


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